


My Petals, Your Promises

by cozune



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Hanahaki Disease, Hospitals, M/M, probably hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 21:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12517416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cozune/pseuds/cozune
Summary: Yuuri thought flowers are beautiful. Except, that is, when they're growing in your body.





	My Petals, Your Promises

**Author's Note:**

> I love them so I must.  
> (Note: This is a little rushed now that I'm looking at it but think of the time skips ; w ;)
> 
>  
> 
> tumblr: @cozune

The flowers that grew around the inn were scarce but well-maintained for the sake of tourism. Yuuri was twelve when he started to fall in love with those flowers. Red tulips were beautiful and sharp against the bleak tones of Hasetsu to add a touch of vibrancy to the place.

For a twelve year old, it was a dream to find ways to escape reality to one that was much more fantastical, more adventurous, and more beautiful.

To Yuuri, Victor Nikiforov was a red tulip.

Watching him on the screen gave him chills of inspiration and the warmth of motivation. He pointed up at Victor, landing a quadruple Salchow, "I want to do that."

* * *

 

"You can't do that."

Yuuri lay on the ice of the rink, panting and sweaty, and slowly sat up in spite of the soreness of his muscles, "What do you mean? I can get it."

"I know you can get it but... Yuuri, if you keep trying to land that jump, you'll hurt yourself." Victor sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose before looking up at Yuuri with a shine back in his eyes and his voice softening. "I just don't want you getting hurt."

He felt his face burn, ears buzzing red and hands trembling. That was unfair. Victor may have been saying that as a practical coach but that meant so much more to Yuuri than anything in the world at the moment. Victor cared about him. A pesky cough was caught in his throat again. Maybe he was getting a cold, Victor had suggested before getting him off the ice and into the bath.

It had been a few months since the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship and since Yuuri practically splayed his heart out on television without Victor even realizing it. He had inadvertently confessed to Victor. Admittedly, after the conference, Yuuri locked himself in his room and refused Victor's request to sleep together for the nth time. If he had let Victor step in his room, even after taking down and hiding away all of his Victor Nikiforov merchandise, Yuuri was sure his heart would have exploded. Yuuri was sure to have come to terms with the fact of his "love" was more than appreciation and starstruck wonder.

Now what would Victor think? What would his _parents_ think? What if they found out about it? What if-? What if Victor didn't love him in that way? What if Victor didn't love him at all? If there was a catalyst for his emotions only Victor could control that even if he loved him that much. Yuuri couldn't sleep after finally coming to terms with that.

* * *

 

"Amazing work as usual!" someone said. A camera flashed.

"We expected no less!" another cooed. A camera flashed again.

"A flawless job well done!" They said.

Several people gathered around Victor as soon as Yuuri started to pack their things. Beijing was a success. Having delivered a flawless program, there was no doubt in mind that people would be congratulating Yuuri. But they weren't congratulating him.

They were talking _about_ Yuuri. But they were congratulating Victor on how well he trained him. They were thanking Victor for ensuring that his performance wasn't a complete disaster because Yuuri had no depth without him. To them, Yuuri was a masterpiece sculpted by Victor's talent and endurance and motivation. If he didn't have Victor, there would be nothing but the meek shell of a skater back in Kyushu.

Of course, a few courteous people sprawled in and congratulated him too with Yuuri only able to say awkward "thank you"s and forced smiles. He was trying to be appreciative and trying to be happy. But Victor's fans were loud.

Victor laughed over the noise, clear and jovial, "I don't know why you're congratulating me," Victor told them with another one of his charming smiles before pulling Yuuri by his side, "Yuuri is the one who put on a spectacular performance."

They looked at Yuuri. His heart was pounding in his ears and his face turned red with embarrassment under their eyes. Even though he had his glasses on, Yuuri felt like his vision was melting away. Those people were more like silhouettes stalking towards him, above him, looking down at him with such blinding fervor. They were caging him in and they blurred until they were just figures staring expectantly at him as if to say:  _Victor is the one who helped you do this. Without him, you wouldn't be here_.

He knew that much.

* * *

 

Yuuri woke up to the sight of flowers in his hotel room. Rather, there were flowers scattered on his chest and the bed. They were tulips and primroses from Yuuri's limited knowledge of flowers. Both glared up at him deviously, mockingly. Confusion set in as Yuuri sat up and stared at the way he looked like someone threw a bouquet at him.

He cleared his throat, feeling sore after the coughing fit last night. Slowly, he rose from his bed and plucked the flowers off of his body and onto the nightstand. Maybe it was an early morning hallucination.

~

It wasn't a hallucination.

Yuuri didn't want to throw them out despite not knowing where they came from. They were too beautiful to throw away. He moved it from the nightstand to the table by the window, using the small empty pitcher from the cupboards to hold the flowers as he gave them water.

"Yuuri?" Victor's voice was muffled through the door as he knocked, "Are you awake?" Victor let himself inside as soon as Yuuri opened the door. "I wanted to know if you wanted to go out and explore Beijing before we go back tomorrow." said Victor, haphazardly glancing at Yuuri's hotel room.

That was a bad idea but something very compelling. Spending hours with Victor, which was the closest he could get besides the hours he spent training and practicing his program in the rink. "Sure." Oh no. "I'll go change." Don't do that.

When Yuuri walked back he found Victor looking curiously at the flowers, "When did you get these? They're very pretty."

"Um..."

"Yellow tulips and primroses, right?" Victor pointed at them and looked up at Yuuri curiously, "They mean for one-sided love and desperation, hm?" Victor's eyes bore into his as his questions sounded more like a statement.

"I'm not sure," said Yuuri, glancing down at the floor, "I never really took the time to learn the language of flowers."

"Neither have I but Yuuko told me all about... Hana...koto...ba?" Victor paused at each syllable of the word, slowly trying to pronounce it and slowly butchering it with his accent before waving it aside with his hand, "The Japanese language of flowers. She told me all about them and how her husband wooed her over with them. It was really quite a romantic story." Victor laughed, but his eyes became slightly steely, "So I can only wonder if you have a secret admirer."

Yuuri's blood froze even if it wasn't true. Was it true? No, he would have remembered getting a secret bouquet from a mystery person. Would he? Yuuri couldn't think and he couldn't break away from Victor's glassy eyes. "N-no that's...it can't be. That's impossible." He managed to stammer out.

Victor smiled but it seemed chillier around him, "I see! You can always be open with me, okay? Please remember that." Victor took both of Yuuri's hands and held them tight. Yuuri couldn't breathe. How does someone breathe? "Now, shall we explore Beijing?"

As Victor let go of his hands and made his way to the door, Yuuri let out a breath and didn't realize he wasn't breathing all that time. The ghost of the warmth of Victor's hands were still stuck to his, leaving it feeling colder than before.

* * *

The next time he had his coughing fit was on the airplane to Moscow. What was worse was that Victor was next to him.

"Yuuri? Are you okay?"

Obviously not. "I'm-... fine." Yuuri reassured between coughs before abruptly standing up, shakily making his way towards the bathroom. He ignored the way Victor's gaze burned the back of his head.

He coughed violently in the bathroom, his hand over his mouth before feeling something on his tongue. It was metallic and felt soft and it felt wrong. Yuuri took his hand away to find tulip petals, primrose petals on his hand  _from his mouth_ and the stain of bright blood on his lips. That was wrong. That was unnatural. He stumbled back and felt his back hit against the wall in surprise.

It hurt.

Yuuri flushed the petals down the toilet and washed his hands and face of the blood he had coughed up before stumbling back into his seat next to Victor. He assured his coach he was fine despite the wracking pain against his ribs. Victor looked worried even as Yuuri started to watch a movie on the small screen in front of him, trying to ignore the urge to look.

"You can rely on me a little more, Yuuri." Victor put a hand over Yuuri's on the armrest and kept it there the entire flight.

That hurt even more.

~

Coughing up flowers wasn't something that regularly happened and it wasn't normal. Coughing blood was also, most definitely, not normal. It was alarming and Yuuri felt sick think about it. The pain in his ribs dulled but still pulsed and ached. But it seemed familiar.

Then he realized:

_"I have to go get a surgery tomorrow so I don't want to tire myself out before then, you know? Especially with the Grand-Prix Final coming up!" Phichit shrugged as he fiddled with his phone. Phichit always liked to be on his phone, active on all social medias and racking up a reputation for the friendly professional skater that could get the fans a few inside pictures. He and Yuuri would always take pictures together but the majority was with the other skaters during practices or lunches out. Then there were the multitudes of pictures with him and Seung-Gil. There were so many, Yuuri was starting to think Phichit was in love with-._

_"Are you okay?" Yuuri looked at him worriedly, Phichit seemed too desperate to focus on his phone instead of the topic at hand, "I didn't know you needed a surgery."_

_"Yeah, it's nothing to worry about though! It's just a lung problem. I probably caught it when we were in Beijing." Phichit laughed briefly before staring deeply into his screen, his fingers starting to slow their pace on the keys. "It's no big deal."_

_Then Yuuri noticed the red carnations in Phichit's trash can._

* * *

 

 

The next coughing fit he had was worse. It was in the middle of the rink, in the middle of practice. Though the Grand-Prix Final was finished and passed by two months, Yuuri needed to be ready for the next one. He needed to surprise Victor. At least, that was what he thought before he collapsed into coughs on the rink.

"Yuuri?" Victor's voice sounded alarmed as Yuuri fell as he tried to land a triple axel and dropped on all fours, heaving in ragged breaths. He felt something in his throat and immediately began to cough, desperately trying to get it out before it choked him. Victor started to come closer. Yuuri coughed louder and finally the flower came out. It was a full-grown primrose. Sure, he had been coughing up flowers for a little over a year but it was never of this size. There was even more blood staining the ice. "Yuuri, what-?"

Yuuri looked up at him, eyes widened, "Please..."

~

Yuuri felt bad. His mother almost started crying when she saw him in the hospital bed, gown and all. Even Yurio looked worried for a moment before telling him to not push himself too hard before he could beat him. Then there was Victor.

He looked empty, sitting in the chair outside of the room, elbows propped on his knees as he knelt over in thought.

The doctor told him that the disease could potentially kill him. They reprimanded him for not coming in sooner. Any longer, they told him, and he could have died for sure. Hanahaki disease was popular amongst the youth and correlated with one-sided or hopeless love. There were several possibilities as to what to do. But Yuuri, despite all these options given to him... He didn't know what to do. The disease would spread the growth of the fully grown flowers to his lungs and his throat, consequentially suffocating him if it weren't treated. As for treatment, the doctors recommended the guaranteed way to life. That was to surgically remove the roots from the chest cavity. That would sound simple if it weren't for the dilemma of losing any feeling towards that person upon removal. The other treatment was one that could only wait out the flowers, hoping that they wouldn't kill him before it happened in which the one he loves will love him back. That was cheeky.

Yuuri mumbled under his breath as the doctor went over procedure with him, "I don't want it."

The doctor looked at him with alarm. She looked at him, worried as professional but also with pity as a regular person, "Katsuki-."

"I don't want to lose those feelings..." Yuuri looked down at the sheets as he gripped onto them, "If I get it removed, I won't ever fall in love with them again?"

"No." She said quietly, "You won't fall in love. You could still be friends with her but... there would be little regard for intimacy or feeling in general. There wouldn't-."

"There wouldn't be a connection." Yuuri interrupted her before gazing past the doctor to the door of the room. It was slightly cracked open and he could see through the window that Victor was outside again, listening. "I don't want to die without loving them."

The chair clattered in the hallway. Yuuri and the doctor looked to see a glimpse of Victor tripping over the chair and stumbling down the hallway.

* * *

"You have to get the surgery." Victor said, sitting down in front of Yuuri. "You need to. It's only going to get worse."

Yuuri felt his face flush, "No. I can't."

"Why?" Victor's eyes narrowed and darkened. "The doctor told you, months ago, that if you wait any longer you would....." He trailed off and leaned forward slightly, setting his folded hands on the table, "Why?"

"That's something I've been asking myself for a while now..." Yuuri looked down at his thumbs. "I still don't have any other answer except... I love him." Victor was silent at that. He didn't speak for a while, it was growing worrisome. Eventually, Yuuri brought the twiddling of his thumbs to a stop to look up. Victor was still staring at him. "Victor?"

"I thought we agreed to tell each other about ourselves. I think... perhaps we need a refresher." Victor leaned over the table, placing his forehead against Yuuri's, "In the past five years I have had two ex-lovers of which I was head over heels for. I was with one of them for three of those years, the longest I had ever been in a relationship with."

Yuuri swallowed, Victor was too close, his hair tickled the end of Yuuri's nose and he could smell the soap from the shower he took. "And?"

"And then when it ended I thought I wouldn't fall in love again. I swore that I wouldn't fall in love because I didn't want to go through that mess of a break up again. I didn't want to fall in love." Victor's eyes softened and his voice grew softer and almost fragile, "Then I met you."

Yuuri didn't want to answer. He didn't want to break the silence between Victor's words. He was afraid to impose on the physical barriers Victor put between the two of them as coach and skater. "Please don't tell me this is a joke."

"No jokes." Victor settled his hand on the back of Yuuri's neck, brushing circles along the skin with his thumb, "I would never joke about this." Suddenly, Yuuri was afraid again. His hands were trembling as he touched Victor's arm. Then he broke.

"You don't know how long I've loved you-"

Victor's lips were hot on his, burning and desperate to prove a point. His tongue prodded and his teeth bit, and yet it was all too gentle like he was comforting him in the midst of his passions. There was a hesitance in the way Victor paused, his eyes flickered open as if asking permission despite already pouncing. Yuuri kissed him back.

Victor tasted like peppermints.

* * *

The disease was gone. That fear was gone and something much more permanent stayed because of it.

Years later, they still shared kisses in private all of the time even after competitions and in their rooms. Even on the days that they practiced their quads and axels to the point of exhaustion, they shared them. These kisses were small, lazier, and softer. They pressed their affections languidly against each others lips, cheeks, jawline, and the corners of the mouth. These kisses were fast, rough, and passionate. They would bite and lick and crave for each other and they would want nothing else except the feeling of skin to skin. They linger a moment too long and explore the skin reserved to be touched by each other. 

They kiss to make up for all the times they didn't.

"It's only natural for me to kiss my fiancé, Yuuri. There's no need to be so embarrassed."

 

 

 


End file.
